The Broadway production of Douglas Carter Beane's The Nance, starring Tony Award winner Nathan Lane, is broadcast nationwide Oct. 10 at 9 PM ET on PBS' Live from Lincoln Center. Check local listings.

Nathan Lane
Photo by Joan Marcus

Tony Award-winning director Jack O'Brien (The Coast of Utopia, Hairspray) staged the Lincoln Center Theater production that ended its Broadway run Aug. 11, 2013. Three additional performances were added to accommodate the filming.

The Nance received five Tony Award nominations, including a Best Actor nod for Lane. The production won Tony Awards for Best Costume Design (Ann Roth), Best Scenic Design (John Lee Beatty) and Best Sound Design (Leon Rothenberg).

"Even in today's gay culture people do not realize how difficult it was for people in the '30s and '40s, not only to get together, but to be decent, to have a life, to not feel marginalized," director Jack O'Brien said in a previous interview.

Beane added, "I wanted to remind people about where we come from and who we are. There is still this element of self-loathing to us, and editing who we are—'Shush, don’t say that and don’t be that way'—more than any other community that I've seen."

The world of New York City's bygone burlesque era was conjured with new musical material by Glen Kelly (The Producers, Spamalot, The Scottsboro Boys, The Book of Mormon); and a revolving set by John Lee Beatty that took audiences on and off-stage as the action plays out.

The production also had costumes by Ann Roth, lighting by Japhy Weideman, sound by Leon Rothenberg, choreography by Joey Pizzi and orchestrations by Larry Blank. David Gursky conducts the band.

The Nance takes its title from a staple vaudeville character, an effeminate homosexual male, who was featured in burlesque sketches and films of the era. The Nance is set during New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia's campaign to ban burlesque in the '30s.

Beane previously told Playbill.com, "America has the greatest knack for immediately forgetting any of its unattractive history the second we've moved on. As astounding progress is being made daily for gay folks everywhere in America, I just wanted to take an evening and remind us all where we come from. And teach the younger gay kids what has come before them."

According to LCT, "A nance, according to Webster's Dictionary, is 'an effeminate or homosexual man.' In the world of 1930s burlesque, a nance was a wildly popular character, a stereotypically camp homosexual man, most times played by a straight performer. In The Nance, playwright Douglas Carter Beane tells the story of Chauncey Miles, a headline nance performer in New York burlesque, who also happens to be a homosexual. Integrating burlesque sketches into his drama, Beane paints, with humor and pathos, the portrait of a homosexual man, living and working in the secretive and dangerous gay world of 1930s New York, whose outrageous antics on the burlesque stage stand in marked contrast to his messy offstage life."

Beane's new treatment for the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Cinderella is now on Broadway. His works also include the Tony-nominated comedy The Little Dog Laughed, As Bees In Honey Drown, Mr. & Mrs. Fitch, Music From A Sparkling Planet, The Country Club, Advice From A Caterpiller and The Cartells. He received Tony Award nominations for the books to the musicals Xanadu, Sister Act and Lysistrata Jones. He also penned the screenplay "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar."

Lane's numerous stage credits include The Addams Family, The Lisbon Traviata, Guys and Dolls, Waiting for Godot, November, Butley, The Odd Couple, The Man Who Came to Dinner, Love! Valor! Compassion!, Laughter on the 23rd Floor, On Borrowed Time, Present Laughter and The Frogs. He is a two-time Emmy Award winner and currently appears on "The Good Wife."

A First Look at Douglas Carter Beane's The Nance on Broadway, Starring Nathan Lane

A First Look at Douglas Carter Beane's The Nance on Broadway, Starring Nathan Lane

Tony Award winner Nathan Lane stars in The Nance, Douglas Carter Beane's new 1930s-set play about a gay burlesque performer facing a changing world, which began Broadway previews March 21 at the Lyceum Theatre. Read the Playbill.com story.